Concurrent work experience in Express Entry: the loophole few people know about

I had to read it three times. Seriously, three times. It was a Sunday night, a cold coffee beside me, the Ministerial Instructions open in two tabs, and me thinking “there’s no way this is true”. Because I’m a data analyst, man. I read legislation the way some people read code. I look for the rules, I look for the exceptions, I look for what’s written and what’s not written. And what I found that night completely changed how I see Express Entry scoring strategy.

There’s a loophole. A real loophole, confirmed by IRCC itself, that lets you earn CRS points for Canadian and foreign work experience at the same time. And almost nobody is talking about it.

If you already understand the basics of Express Entry, sit down. This article is advanced. It’s for people who want to understand the mechanics behind the system, not just the surface.

The rules that already exist: what the legislation forbids

Before I talk about the loophole, I need to show you the rules that are already in the legislation. Because the loophole only makes sense once you understand what surrounds it.

Canadian experience: section 15(6)

The Ministerial Instructions, in section 15(6), are pretty clear: you cannot count simultaneous periods of work in more than one full-time occupation in Canada. Translation: if you have two Canadian jobs at the same time, say 25 hours at one and 25 hours at the other, you cannot add the hours together to reach the 1-year requirement faster. The experiences don’t stack. Each one is assessed separately.

So that idea of “work two part-time Canadian jobs and together it adds up to full-time” doesn’t work. The legislation explicitly blocks it.

And there’s more the legislation blocks in the Canadian category:

• Section 15(7): you cannot declare Canadian work experience while engaged in full-time study in Canada. And look at the detail: the rule says “engaged in full-time study”, not “holding a study permit”. The difference is subtle but it matters. If you’re doing a full-time program, even if technically your permit allows you to work, that experience does not count as Canadian experience for Express Entry.
• Self-employment: does not count as Canadian experience. If you’re a freelancer, an independent contractor, a business owner, that experience doesn’t enter the CRS calculation as Canadian experience. There are a few very specific exceptions for physicians, but for 99% of people, self-employment is out.
• Work authorization: you must have held valid work authorization for the entire period you’re going to declare. No authorization, no points.
• Time window: you can declare up to 10 years of Canadian experience, as long as it was obtained in the last 10 years.

Foreign experience: section 25(4)

Outside Canada, the rule is mirrored. Section 25(4) establishes that you cannot count simultaneous periods of work in more than one full-time foreign occupation. Same logic: two foreign jobs at the same time don’t add together to reach the 1-year foreign experience requirement faster.

So far it all makes sense, right? The system doesn’t want you to stack jobs within the same category to inflate your profile. Fair.

But then comes the question I asked myself that Sunday night: what if it’s a Canadian job and a foreign job at the same time?

The loophole: Canadian + foreign is not forbidden

When I went looking through the legislation for a ban on declaring Canadian and foreign experience simultaneously, I didn’t find one. I read it again. Didn’t find it. I read it a third time, word by word. Nothing.

The “excess work” provisions, the ones that prevent overlap, deal exclusively with multiple jobs within the same category. Multiple Canadian OR multiple foreign. Not one Canadian AND one foreign.

And I’m not the only one who noticed this. IRCC was formally asked about this possibility. And the answer, confirmed in both 2024 and 2025, was direct: there is nothing in the legislation or the Ministerial Instructions that prevents someone from declaring Canadian and foreign work experience at the same time.

Read that sentence again. IRCC itself confirmed it. Twice. In different years.

In practice, what does that mean? That if you work for a Canadian company AND, at the same time, work remotely for a foreign company, you can potentially receive:

• Core CRS points for the Canadian experience
• Skill transferability points for the foreign experience

At the same time. For the same period. Legally.

How this works in practice

Let’s get concrete. The most common scenario is this: you live in Canada, you work full-time for a Canadian company, and on the side you do remote work for a company abroad. It could be consulting, software development, data analysis, design, anything you can do remotely.

When you go to declare it in Express Entry, the experience with the Canadian employer enters as Canadian experience, normal. And the experience with the foreign employer? It enters as foreign experience. Even if you did the work sitting in your living room in Vancouver.

Because in Express Entry, what defines whether experience is Canadian or foreign is the employer’s country, not where you are physically. I explain this in detail in the article on remote work and immigration, if you haven’t read it yet.

And this combo of simultaneous Canadian + foreign experience unlocks something a lot of people don’t realize: the skill transferability points.

The CRS math: why this matters so much

This is the part the data analyst in me loves. Let’s run the numbers.

If you have Canadian experience but zero foreign experience, you lose all the skill transferability points that come from combining foreign experience with other factors (language, education). And those points are not small.

The example that caught my attention: a person with a competitive profile who has 0 foreign experience, if they can accumulate 1 year of foreign experience, can gain a boost of roughly 38 CRS points. From 489 to 527, for example. Thirty-eight points. In a system where every point counts, where the difference between getting invited and waiting can be 5 points, 38 is an absurd difference.

And here comes a detail few people know: the difference between 1 year and 3 years of foreign experience in terms of skill transferability is minimal, around 1 point. The big jump happens when you go from 0 to 1 year. After that, the return drops drastically.

In other words: you don’t need years and years of foreign experience. You need one year. And if you can accumulate that year working remotely for a foreign company while keeping your Canadian job, man, you just unlocked nearly 40 extra points without changing anything in your life.

How to declare it in your Express Entry profile

If you fit this situation, here’s exactly how to declare it in the system:

1. Canadian experience: declare it normally. Canadian employer, address in Canada, everything the way anyone would.

2. Foreign experience (remote): select the employer’s country, not Canada. If the company is American, select United States. If it’s Brazilian, select Brazil. It doesn’t matter that you did the work from inside Canada.

3. Watch out for the side effect: when you select a foreign country as the employer’s country, the system may automatically trigger a request for a police certificate from that country. Even if you’ve never set foot there. It’s something a lot of people don’t expect and that has to be resolved, usually with a detailed letter of explanation.

4. Letter of explanation: this one is mandatory. You need to include a detailed letter explaining the remote work arrangement. No generic one-liner. Spell out:

• What you do in each job
• How your time is split between the two
• That both employers know about and authorize the situation
• Where you are physically located

Without a letter of explanation, you’re asking to get a refusal. And if the explanation is inconsistent or incomplete, you enter the dangerous territory of misrepresentation.

What documents do you need to gather to declare concurrent work?

If you’re going down this path, document everything. And when I say everything, I mean everything. For each job, separately:

For the Canadian job:

• A full reference letter with all the IRCC requirements
• T4 slips, pay stubs, Records of Employment
• Employment contract or offer letter

For the foreign (remote) job:

• Remote work agreement or contract
• Proof that the employer recognizes and authorizes the remote work
• Location documentation (where you actually work from)
• Tax records showing fiscal compliance in both jurisdictions
• Proof of incorporation of the foreign company, if applicable
• Bank transfers, pay slips, or any proof of payment
• Reference letter from the foreign company

Cross documentation (for both):

• A detailed letter of explanation covering the whole arrangement
• Documentation of hours worked per week in each position
• Tax returns showing that both incomes are properly declared

The golden rule: if the immigration officer asks “how does this work?”, you need to have a document that answers it. No room for doubt, no gap for interpretation.

The risks: heavy scrutiny and the “30 hours” trap

Now, the part where I have to be very honest with you. This is not for everyone. The level of scrutiny a concurrent work declaration receives is significantly higher than a normal declaration.

Work hours: each job needs at least 30 hours per week to count as valid full-time experience. If there are two jobs, we’re talking about 60 to 80 hours per week. For a full year. And the immigration officer needs to believe this is real and sustainable.

Got it? Declaring it isn’t enough. The officer needs to believe it.

The “30+30” trap: if both of your jobs show exactly 30 hours per week, the absolute minimum, that raises a red flag immediately. It looks too calculated. It looks like someone sat down and thought “what’s the minimum I need to declare for each one?”. Arrangements that are “too convenient” attract extra scrutiny. If one job is 35 hours and the other is 30, that’s already less suspicious than 30+30.

Functions and responsibilities: you need to show that you’re performing the main duties, the lead statement and a substantial number of the main duties, of both positions. Simultaneously. The officer will look at whether the job descriptions make sense being done at the same time by the same person.

Cap on additional points: the Ministerial Instructions (FSW selection criteria) do not grant additional points for work exceeding 30 hours per week. So declaring 50 hours in a job doesn’t give you more points than declaring 30.

And look, I know in the tech world a lot of people genuinely work 60+ hours a week. A dev with a full-time job who freelances at night, a data scientist who consults for a foreign company on weekends. That exists, it’s real. But you need to prove it’s real. T4s, pay stubs, bank transfers, everything has to match the declared hours. If you declare 60 hours a week but your income doesn’t reflect that, IRCC will notice.

The clock is ticking: this could end at any moment

And here’s where I need to give you a serious heads up.

In the official responses, IRCC not only confirmed that simultaneous declaration is allowed, it also said this possibility is “being reviewed”. Those were the exact words. “Being reviewed.” The ability to declare Canadian and foreign experience at the same time could be removed through changes to the Ministerial Instructions.

And changes to the Ministerial Instructions don’t have to go through Parliament. The Minister of Immigration can change this with relatively little bureaucracy. It could happen at a future draw. It could happen next quarter. It could happen tomorrow.

I’m not telling you to run off and declare things that aren’t true. The opposite, actually. Never declare anything that isn’t 100% real and documentable. Misrepresentation gives you a 5-year ban and destroys any chance of PR. It’s not worth the risk. Ever.

But if you genuinely work for a Canadian company and a foreign company at the same time, and until now you didn’t know you could declare both, now you know. And the window may be closing.

What to do with this information

Look, I know this article is dense. It’s a lot of technical information, a lot of Ministerial Instructions sections, a lot of exceptions and conditions. But that’s how it works when you’re operating in a zone few people explore.

If you fit this scenario, Canadian work + foreign remote work at the same time, here’s the summary of what you need to do:

1. Check that it’s real. Don’t create artificial arrangements to exploit this loophole. The experience has to be genuine, with real hours, real work, real pay.

2. Document obsessively. Every hour, every payment, every contract. If it isn’t documented, it doesn’t exist.

3. Prepare the letter of explanation. Detail the whole arrangement. Anticipate the officer’s questions and answer all of them in the letter before they even need to ask.

4. Take care of the tax side. Tax compliance in both jurisdictions. The CRA and IRCC talk to each other.

5. Don’t build your whole strategy on this. This loophole could close. Use it as a bonus, not a foundation.

6. Track the changes. If the Ministerial Instructions get updated, this possibility could disappear overnight.

I write this as someone in the middle of the same journey as you, man. Analyzing every CRS point, every rule, every exception. Looking for an edge where most people don’t look. Because that’s how it works when you’re building a new life in another country: every detail matters.

Now, the part I’m required to say and that I say from the heart: this article is informational. Immigration rules change. What’s written here reflects what I found in the legislation and in IRCC’s responses up to today’s date. Tomorrow it could be different. Consult a regulated professional before making any decision that affects your application. I share what I learn, but I’m not an immigration lawyer, and every case has its particularities.

We’re in this together, you get me? And between not knowing and knowing, I will always prefer that you know.